


Don't Wait Up

by asocialconstruct



Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: M/M, broments, work out porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-09 09:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asocialconstruct/pseuds/asocialconstruct
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cain and Encke share a little broment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Wait Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Royal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Royal/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY RP

“Sixty-two . . . Sixty-three . . . Sixty . . . Come on, Reliant, where’s sixty-four?”

Cain lay on the mat, nose down, flat on his belly.  It was a good look for him, Encke thought, after a day of picking fights and sassing off.  He nudged the little shit in the side with the toe of his boot.  “You owe me thirty-seven more pushups, Reliant, I don’t got all night,” he snapped down at Cain’s sweat-covered back, but not too harsh, since he remembered the burning exhaustion of doing pushups he’d deserved with the lieutenant breathing down his neck.

“mmmnnngph,” Cain mumbled to the training room floor.

“Couldn’t hear you, Reliant, you might want to try picking your face up off the floor.”

Cain pushed himself up a fraction, snarling something that sounded distinctly more like _fuck you_.

“Still can’t hear you, but it sounds like you want to run some laps before you finish your pushups.  Up we go, sunshine,” Encke said, trying not to laugh as he hauled Cain up by the elbow.  The little shit was skinny, banty-weight and pig-headed, and Encke didn’t doubt that he’d try taking a swing if he got pissed off enough to make the time in the brig worth it.

But Cain just gave him a filthy look as he started off down the track, and Encke watched him for just a second, sweat-drenched and beautiful if he ever wiped the scowl off his face, but Encke turned back to his tablet with Keeler’s messages blinking.

_> I thought you said you’d be back soon.  I’ve got to be up in five hours._

_> Still stuck in PT, don’t wait up_

_> Fine, I won’t._

It was the period that said it, Keeler always more precise when he was pissed off.  Like it was Encke’s fault fighters got PT and navigators got detention.  Encke cursed and tossed the tablet down on the supervisor’s desk, crossing his arms over his chest and watching Cain circle the length of the training room back to him as he finished his first lap.

Fuck it, running felt good and it would keep him from thinking about Keeler, so Encke dropped into stride beside Cain, matching his pace.  Too slow by half if they were going to get out of there before midnight.  Cain shot him another dirty look but didn’t break stride, picking up the pace a bit as Encke pushed a little faster, the little shit exhausted but not about to show it in front of an officer.  Not a fight he’d win, with Encke fresh and Cain coming off of sixty-odd pushups and laps before that, but Reliant could take a little bullying and it showed that the little shit had some ambition despite himself.

Encke picked up the pace again, Cain matching as they came in on the end of the second lap.  Reliant would go far if he didn’t let Bering’s secret mission go to his head or get him killed; he had potential, and energy, and drive, of a kind that would be useful if Encke could just point him in the right direction instead of letting the little shit pick fights that went nowhere.  Encke couldn’t quite tell if that was macho bullshit or self-destructiveness, trying to find a place in the pecking order not easy for skinny little guys, but if Reliant just kept his head down and worked half as hard as he could or as hard as his navigator did, he wouldn’t have to fight his way to the top of the pecking order because he’d get there naturally.

But Reliant was hot-headed and young, too impatient for his own good, like now, when he tried to show up Encke with a little burst of speed towards the end of the third lap and lost his tiny bit of a lead not even halfway into the fourth, all bristling bravado with no endurance to back it up.  The smoking didn’t help, Encke had learned that pretty soon after his promotion, when running laps with every idiot who got surly during training had become part of his routine, but Reliant hadn’t had to give up his favorite vice yet.

Encke laughed as Reliant fell back into stride beside him, struggling to keep up after that little bit of showing off, and got a defiant look and another burst of speed, Cain shaking hair out of his face to glance back and see if he’d shaken Encke, but startled when he saw Encke right there with him, not a step out of pace.  Encke hadn’t been in his commission long, the lieutenant’s stripes still heavy on his uniform, but he’d recognized Reliant’s look because it wasn’t so long since he’d been on the other side of this, jogging late at night with the lieutenant because he’d been a dumb shit too.

So Encke pushed Reliant faster, and a little faster after that, through the fourth lap and the fifth, just to show him who was in charge, and that he wasn’t the only one with a few tricks up his sleeve and a streak of orneriness.

Encke let him off at the end of the fifth lap, slowing to a stop as Cain dropped to the mat and into his next set of pushups.  Stubborn, Encke gave him that.

“Nough of that, Reliant, get up,” Encke said, since it was well and truly past midnight and he no longer gave a fuck.

Cain glared up at him and just kept going, probably at eighty pushups if Encke had bothered to count.  He had no doubt Cain could make the full hundred, but if he was going to feel sorry for himself and drink in the middle of the night he wasn’t going to do it alone, even if a skinny little banty-weight pain in the ass was all he had for company.  “I’ll drink your beer for you if you don’t want it, sunshine,” Encke said, and that got Cain’s attention, bouncing him up off the mat to follow Encke into the locker rooms faster than he should have been able to.  Encke reminded himself to make it ten laps and two hundred pushups next time.

“You got beer?” Cain demanded, hot on his heels.  “Where the fuck did you get beer out here?” he asked, adding just in time, “sir?”

Encke gave him half a smile over his shoulder as he got his locker open and lifted the false back panel, the reason it was always the officer’s locker, and he’d found out about it just the same way as Cain had, when the lieutenant who’d chewed his ass out from day one picked him out for officer training.  “Officer’s prerogatives,” Encke said, handing Cain a bottle from his dwindling stash.  “But don’t you ever fucking tell anyone about this or I’ll have your ass in a sling, Reliant.”

Cain had his half gone before Encke had even gotten the cap off his; warm and a little stale, it still tasted like home and Reliant had never been much one for manners anyway.  Encke took a sip of his and waved Reliant to sit next to him on the bench.  Took a good long look at the peeling label on the bottle before taking another drink, Cain drinking his greedily.

“We . . . uh, we drinking to something? Sir?” Cain said after a while, noticing his mood.

Encke glanced at the clock on the wall.  “Just a birthday,” Encke shrugged.  Hadn’t even told Keeler that, because they’d been fighting so much lately.

“Oh.  Oh, uh—happy birthday?  Happy birthday, sir,” Cain said, and they clinked the bottles together, drinking the rest in silence, until Encke chased Cain off to bed, and stayed to drink a second beer alone.


End file.
